Mexico is a highly popular place for tourism. Especially in winters,
because of its all-year-round pleasant weather. It has amazing beaches with turquoise water.
Today, I’m in Cancún with my wife Juli. It’s a city located on the Yucatán Peninsula
of Mexico. It’s famous for a lot of things.
You can jump in the blue holes here. Which are known as the Cenotes.
Try out the food here or the adventure parks. But perhaps, the most interesting thing
is to visit one of the "Seven Wonders of the World":
the Chichen Itza. It’s located approximately a 2.5-hour drive from here.
Let’s have a look!
No, gracias!
You’ve probably heard of the Maya Civilisation. Once a vibrant city, today, Chichen Itza
is a complex of Maya ruins and ancient structures.
It’s approximately 200 km from Cancún.
Best known for their complex calendars,
advances in mathematics and astronomy, and allegedly predicting the end of the world in 2012,
the Maya civilisation was one of the most dominant indigenous societies
of Mexico and Central America before the 16th century Spanish conquest.
Chichen Itza is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and quite popular.
Try to arrive here as early as possible and be here by 8 am.
Otherwise, the waiting lines can be quite long.
If you want to, you can hire a guide to tell you more about the site
which will cost around 50€, and it will allow you to skip the line.
If you’re not a Mexican national, a ticket will cost you 571 Mexican Pesos
Which is around 25€.
It’s about 10% cheaper if you pay by cash, instead of credit cards.
So you should always use the ATMs here.
Like most touristic places, there are a lot of tourist shops
where you can buy souvenirs. But if you don’t want anything, just say, “No, gracias.”
It sounds like a bird.
If you google Chichen Itza, the image of this pyramid will come up.
I used to think that this itself was Chichen Itza, but it’s actually the whole site.
This pyramid itself is called the Pyramid of El Castillo or the Temple of Kukulcán.
It’s the main attraction here.
Kukulcán is actually a name of a serpent deity
that was worshipped by the Maya. And it literally means ‘feathered snake’
in the Yucatec Maya language.
If you’re here, you will see a lot of people clapping.
That’s because there is something very special with the acoustics of this temple
and the staircase. If you clap, there will be an echo that you’ll hear,
that sounds like a bird chirping.
Specifically, the chirp of the Mexican Quetzal bird —
a sacred animal in Maya culture.
Funnily, it doesn’t work if you’re standing on the side.
You have to be standing exactly in the center of the staircase.
We know that the Maya had a really sophisticated calendrical system
— including the 365-day calendar. Now, what’s interesting is that
if you see the pyramid behind me, each side has 91 steps exactly.
But the main entrance has one extra step. So in total, there are 365 steps in the pyramid.
And on each side, you can see 52 rectangular panels.
They stand for the 52-year calendrical cycle the Maya used to track longer periods of time.
The belief that after each such period, the universe gets destroyed and recreated
when the new era starts, led to the misunderstanding that
they predicted the end of the world in 2012.
I just counted them, it’s true.
If you’re wondering how high El Castillo is,
the temple at the top of the pyramid is approximately 24 meters above the ground.
The view must be good from up there, but these ruins are protected
and you’re no longer allowed to climb up there.
This is to avoid accidents and to preserve this ancient site.
So here I have the Haab' calendar of the Mayans which was also 365 days,
just like our modern calendar. It had 18 months, each month had 20 days,
And had 5 days left over at the end of the year.
These Mayans considered those 5 days very dangerous.
They were afraid to leave their homes on those days and followed certain rituals.
Because that was the time, they believed,
that the underworld met with the mortal world.
The site covers an area of roughly 5 km². It is thought that the city used to be also
one of the most diverse in the Maya world. Which could be the reason why we could find
a variety of architectural styles here.
And these structures used to be painted.
You can see some leftover colors on some of the structures.
You can even find a ballgame court there.
Can you imagine playing a game where you have to kick
a rubber ball through that hole? But wait, you’re not allowed to use your hands or feet.
You can use your elbows, hips, or this area, or any other part of the body.
And there’s another twist. If you win this game, you get your head cut off.
I’m not joking!
This was literally the rule of this game. The captain of the winning team gets decapitated.
But the funny thing is he considered it an honor.
It was an honorable sacrifice. So people wanted to have that happen to them.
Because they believed that they would be reincarnated in a better form.
- This is one head, I see. - No, that is a skull.
- It’s a skull, yeah. - It’s not the same thing.
- It represents the afterlife. - Afterlife, okay.
- Can you see? - It looks a bit mystical.
- Exactly!
- Where is the head there? - Here!
- Oh, I see it, yeah.
It’s hard to imagine that some of the Maya rituals were this brutal,
Given their quite sophisticated sense of architecture with artistic decorations and beautiful carvings.
But it's some of these carvings, which give a hint at their customs and rituals.
This wall has a lot of engraved skulls. That’s because they used to put
their enemies’ skulls on a pike on this wall.
Don’t forget to pack your sunscreen, because even in the middle of winter,
it gets very hot here. Always touching around 30°Celsius.
But thankfully, there is shade here in some areas.
You should also bring enough water. But if you’re out of it,
there’s one shop inside the site, which sells water and other beverages.
It’s located right next to the Sacred Cenote.
This here is the Sacred Cenote.
Basically, a sinkhole. They used to throw a lot of stuff down there for sacrifice.
Even humans.
If you come all the way to Chichen Itza, then you should also visit these amazing cenotes.
Like this one down here which is just a 5-minute drive from Chichen Itza.
- Would you jump in there? - Yeah.
It’s so cold.
So epic, though.
As we mentioned before, we stayed in Cancún,
and went to Chichen Itza for a day trip. There are many day trip tours you can book
which start around 40€ depending on the availability, group size and tour package.
— excluding the ticket price. However, Chichen Itza actually also has its
own international airport. And there are some hotels nearby the site.
If you’ve enjoyed this video, do subscribe to the DW Travel channel
for more such videos. See you next time!